Oh so you've decided then we're going to stick with this engine, and not port over to a newer one. That does have the advantage of continued compatibility with older hardware I suppose. Anyway, if you have a test build for me to play with, I know off hand a number of useless things I can remove to reduce file size.

I'm glad to hear that TBM and The Orange Block is still alive and kicking, and as DShiznit says, I'd certainly be interested in seeing how feasible a port to Freebuild (once it gets to an appropriate stage) would be.

I was thinking actually of porting to the last 1.5.2 engine that isn't going to be used for anything else anymore anyway. Most of the infrastructure is actually already there(assuming we're allowed to continue using Cemetech as a multiplayer master server). We'd just need to rewrite the irc code for in-game cross-server chat(and server joining for those who don't want to use a Cemetech login). Everything else could almost literally be dragged and dropped into place.

My only concerns are

1. Some players may not be able to run the game with older hardware
2. I don't know if the shadow casting lag has been worked out for bricks, or whether or not the lighting can be scaled back in the scripts to help with framerate

I was thinking actually of porting to the last 1.5.2 engine that isn't going to be used for anything else anymore anyway. Most of the infrastructure is actually already there(assuming we're allowed to continue using Cemetech as a multiplayer master server). We'd just need to rewrite the irc code for in-game cross-server chat(and server joining for those who don't want to use a Cemetech login). Everything else could almost literally be dragged and dropped into place.

I raise no objection to this, as long as we can come up with some appropriate filtering methods once the new engine version is out. Ultimately it is Kerm's call though. Rewriting the IRC code may not be the funnest thing you've ever done though. I also want to have a conference with the TOB team at some point about how you would like to handle the first FB release with T3D and producing content with that engine.

DShiznit wrote:

1. Some players may not be able to run the game with older hardware
2. I don't know if the shadow casting lag has been worked out for bricks, or whether or not the lighting can be scaled back in the scripts to help with framerate

Turning off shadows is a trivial scripting task (for specific datablocks, or system wide, iirc).

This doesn't really belong in this topic, but for some random Freebuild/TBM ideas that are inspired on my experiences in Minecraft and trying to figure out why it's such a popular game, take a look at this news item and the posts in the attached thread.

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